Kathleen Horst, “Damariscotta, Theater-Side.”

This summer, The Pemaquid Group of Artists offers an opportunity for art lovers to view and purchase the group’s art through its expanded website, www.pemaquidartgallery.com.

The PAG Board decided not to open its physical gallery space this season due to COVID-19 risks and instead the public is encouraged to survey its art online.

Watercolorists Kathleen Horst and Paul Sherman, for example, illustrate the wide range of style and vision possible in the same medium and among the Pemaquid Artists.

Kathleen Horst was a high school level art teacher and a potter for many years, but her passion for watercolor led her to focus on that medium when she retired to Maine. She grew up in Florida, then moved to Macon, Georgia, where her love of the South’s richly colored natural world intensified. Not only a studio potter, she also created handmade, painted and glazed tiles of people’s homes, which became an easy transition to the house portrait part of her watercolor business. She now has her own gallery/studio on the Bristol Road in Damariscotta and is a member of the Bristol Road Galleries, a collaborative of four nearby galleries a short drive from downtown Damariscotta. Her work is presently viewable there, also in a group show at the Damariscotta River Grill and in several windows along Main Street.

Horst’s delicate and charming watercolors celebrate the coastal Maine landscape, its flora and fauna. She is fascinated by small coastal villages and historic architecture, as well as the variety of birds found along the coast. She has recently developed a specialty of depicting long horizontal, miniaturized, portraits of local towns and villages, often compressing a main street scene to feature the best known and most picturesque buildings in the center. Her bird and flower paintings are elegant, lush and dramatic but always retain the lovely luminosity typical of watercolor.

Paul Sherman, “Red-Blue-White.”

In contrast to Horst’s delicate style, Paul Sherman’s watercolors border on a surreal, boldly calligraphic depiction of form, moving towards abstraction. Often drawn to water, Sherman creates forceful images that reveal a fascination with reflections and waves and break up into flowing bands of color. His colors are limited, brilliant and unique to his own vision — bright pinks, blues and greens. Other subject matter includes landscapes, people, buoys and animals, even a crystal doorknob, always crisp and bold.

Sherman has pursued art for most of his life, studying with mentors and developing his own voice.  With a master’s in electrical engineering, he has been self-employed in many fields related to building, including shipbuilding, and is a musician, playing electric bass in a band. All of these experiences have impacted his art, and he sees the body of his work as “an orchestration,” which he performs as a bridge between the perception of the viewer and his own artistic vision. 

The 2020 Pemaquid Group of Artists gallery can be viewed online at pemaquidartgallery.com.